Trisha Sorenson of Helena, who spent a night "guarding" the Confederate fountain, is arrested Aug. 18, 2017 after refusing an officer's order to move away from the monument before city officials removed it from Hill Park.

The controversial Confederate fountain sits wrapped in a tarp in an undisclosed location earlier this week. It was removed from Hill Park in downtown Helena one year ago today.

Thom Bridge, thom.bridge@helenair.com

People gather at the controversial Confederate fountain in Hill Park on Aug. 18, 2017, as city employees, under police guard, remove the monument.

Thom Bridge, thom.bridge@helenair.com

Trisha Sorenson of Helena, who spent a night "guarding" the Confederate fountain, is arrested Aug. 18, 2017 after refusing an officer's order to move away from the monument before city officials removed it from Hill Park.

The city removed the fountain in response to a national epidemic of violence sparked by racial animus in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Then-mayor Jim Smith and the Helena City Commission directed city staff to remove the monument during a two-hour public meeting on Aug. 15, 2017. Some of the 40 people who spoke up at the meeting pleaded with officials to leave the monument alone, some questioned the possibility of rededicating the fountain, and some just wanted it gone.

The commissioners agreed that the fountain should be removed.

“I believe that if the fountain remains in the park, there will likely be a confrontation where high emotions coupled with strong beliefs spill over into violence,” Commissioner Dan Ellison said at the time.

“Underneath it all is a history of racism,” Commissioner Ed Noonan said during the meeting, adding a concern that the fountain could be used as a reason for violence. “At the history of this moment, that’s what these monuments have become.”

“I see the seriousness of it,” Noonan added.

Commissioner Rob Farris-Olsen also voiced concerns about safety, but said racism was the primary issue.

“I think we have an obligation to take it down,” he said in 2017. “I wish we would have two years ago.”

The Independent Record quoted many Helena residents who spoke for and against the fountain's removal, including Paul Pacini, who served on the Helena Citizens' Council.

“By removing the fountain, we’re erasing history,” Pacini said at the meeting. Pacini also said the monument could spark further conversations from which residents could learn and grow.

Earlier that month, the American Indian Caucus wrote a letter to the editor calling on local officials to remove the monument.

"The Confederate flag was even used by the Dixiecrats, a segregationist political party of the 1940s. The flag continues to serve as an emblem for racism and racial inequality for domestic terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other white nationalist organizations."

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"This monument romanticizes one of the most dehumanizing, violent, and destructive periods in our history. It honors those who fought with the Confederacy to preserve slavery and willfully disregards the horrific legacies of the Confederacy, including lynchings, segregation, and the systemic oppression of Black Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants that continues to this day,” the statement reads. “We must ensure that each person who walks the streets and parks of our town feels welcome. We, as Helenans and Montanans, cannot expect to communicate such equality when a symbol of racism, inequality, and oppression stands prominently in Hill Park.”

Helena/Lewis and Clark County Historic Preservation Officer Pam Attardo said she believed Helena’s monument was different than those removed in other cities around the nation.

“Some of these monuments are clearly offensive. I could not defend a battle flag, even if it is historic. It’s just such an incendiary and hate-mongering symbol,” she said. “In my opinion, the fountain isn’t. I don’t see it as a symbol of hatred itself.”

The fountain was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and dedicated in 1916. Attardo has acknowledged that the fountain may have been donated as part of the UDC’s attempt to rewrite the history of the South, but she advocated to have it explained rather than removed.

“I wanted people to know: Why the heck did we have a Confederate monument in our park? Who put it there? And the national significance of it was, it was actually part of a larger campaign,” Attardo said last year.

Montana Preservation Alliance Executive Director Chere Jiusto said the fountain issue was a "hard topic, because there's so much history of suffering and injustice."

"We do support re-examining the monuments and those icons that somehow memorialize the unfairness of our history," she said. "We also feel that it's important not to just make them go away, but to place them in a setting where people can learn from our history and what happened and ensure that as we go forward that we all try hard never to carry those kinds of attitudes and that kind of reality into the future for our kids or our future generations."

Annie Hanshew, a Helena historian who studies objects as historical documents, wrote a letter to the Independent Record in 2017 advocating for the removal of the fountain.

While the fountain may not hold "dark associations" for those who defend it, Hanshew wrote, "it is worth considering (and listening to) how our non-white neighbors feel. There is significant evidence that victims of slavery and genocide passed their trauma down to their descendants. This transgenerational trauma can even become encoded in descendants’ DNA. So to some, 1916 might feel like the distant past, but to others, it is not so distant. I’d rather remove a fountain than have any of my neighbors experience anxiety or fear."

Baumler recently said she believes the charge to remove the monument was not based on research about why and how the fountain was originally placed in Hill Park.

"These women were not political," Baumler said of the Daughters of the Confederacy.

"The Daughters of the Confederacy put in landscaping at Women's Park. They were trying to do something better for the community."

Last year, Baumler said "some people believe that their ulterior motive was support of the early Ku Klux Klan and to promote white supremacy. That may be true in other places, but I simply do not believe that was true in Helena.”

The Confederate fountain started gaining public attention as far back as 2015, after Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans at a church in South Carolina because of his white-supremacist beliefs. Roof was previously photographed with a Confederate flag, which led some Helenans to question whether the Confederate fountain was an acceptable monument to have in the community.

At that time, the city commission and Mayor Smith concluded that removing the fountain was not in the best interests of the community and instead decided to place a plaque explaining the fountain's history at the site. The plaque was never installed, and Smith later said the monument would have been removed even if the signage were in place in 2017.

Ron Waterman, a well-known community figure, is in the process of replacing the Confederate fountain with what he has christened the "Equity Fountain Project."

Waterman said four artists will submit their designs for a new fountain on Sept. 15, and they will be on display at the Holter Museum of Art.

It will give the public an opportunity to see the design and express support for all or some of the design," he said.

Waterman hopes to take the project to the Helena City Commission for a vote sometime in October. He has already lined up some silent donors and plans to open up the project to the public for donations soon.

The goal, Waterman explained, is to find a design the community wants that embodies the values shared by Helenans: equity, equality, justice, diversity, peace, etc.

"These are values we hold in common with each other," he said. "This is to speak to future generations and show them the values we had in common with each other at this time, and hope those values are held by our future."

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(22) comments

This was a beautiful fountain devoted to those who were simply mourning the loss of their loved ones. It was inscribed "In loving memory of our Confederate dead." This was a historical artwork that could have been used to tell the story of the Southerners who chose to make Montana their home after going through that horrible war. Now its gone and part of Montana's history is gone with it..

That last comment is stupidity at it's finest. If the future generations follow your ideals they will take down your statues and erase your existance from History. I hope they do also. What a twit. Talk about your legacy in the future by removing other people's legacy left from before. And you want future generations to do as you. Why bother putting anything up then if you want them taken down in the future. Like what you are doing. Think before speaking.

Except they fought an invading army to their home states that they did not recognize as theirs anymore. The reason for Secession was to maintain and expand their Slave powered economy but nobody went down South to free anybody. There should be a statue of a planter with Uncle Sam rifling his pockets at bayonet point.

In August 2017, our liberal, politically correct, follow the crowd City Commission decided without a public hearing, to join the mass hysteria sweeping the country and decided to remove from a City park, a fountain that was dedicated to the memory of all Confederate soldiers. This decision was wrong.

One year later, in August 2018, does our newly elected mayor of the City, have he courage and leadership to revisit the removal of the fountain and to openly discuss at a public hearing, the return of the fountain to its original site? Probably not. Put this issue to a public vote? Again, probably not.

Years in the future the people of Helena and this country are going to wonder about the spineless community leaders who caved to the senseless mass hysteria that destroyed so much of the history of this great country. All because of a belief that these statues and monument promoted slavery and racism. Why did our leaders allow this to happen? Why do so many people see everything they do not like as racist. The individuals who are promoting this violence have lost track of even why they are doing this destruction. Soon we will have no memory of our past.

A quote from the Independent Record. :“I believe that if the fountain remains in the park, there will likely be a confrontationwhere high emotions coupled with strong beliefs spill over into violence,” Commissioner Dan Ellison said at the time.“Underneath it all is a history of racism,” Commissioner Ed Noonan said during the meeting, adding a concern that the fountain could be used as a reason for violence. “At the history of this moment, that’s what these monuments have become.”Where were the riots and bloodshed in Helena? Did I miss all of the civil unrest? How about the massive protests? Return the fountain to its original place !

The reason for getting rid of that monument wasn't to prevent future violence, it was to remove something that celebrated traitors to our country and, when installed, promoted racial segregation.

If you look at the other fountain that the UDC installed, many were actual drinking fountains and were labeled "White" and "Colored." That kind of signage is "history" too. Would you be advocating keep it?

The UDC is still an active, pro-segregation group. They also promote a false version of history, even promoting the lie that slaves joined the Confederate army "by the tens of thousands," a lie supported by some commenters on this site.

They were not traitors. Yes they should have those fountains and ignore the signs. I would personally drink from the coloured fountain. The only problem with that is then we would have to have Tranny fountains and people who identify as a typewriter that day fountains and it will never end. BLM is a segregation group. I would be interested on what "lies" the UDC spread. They can't be as bad as "Massa Linkum Dun Fit De War To Free Dem Slaves" garbage that has been Propogated.

Put the fountain back in its original place. The fountain caused no acts of violence as predicted by our local media and the liberal politically correct snowflakes who worried that this fountain would cause the downfall of the nation and the whole world. Return the fountain, NOW !

the monument is still there. The fountain was just a small part. The benches, platform, trees and planters are still at Hill Park. If you are destroying history, destroy it all. Take the rest away also. Or put it back and rededicate it to all of the early pioneers that shaped Helena.

Confederates are not traitors. They seceeded. That's not Treason. They didn't try to overthrow the US government. It wasn't actually a Civil War. They wanted Independence from a government agreement that was not working for them. Dissolving their membership was perfectly legal.

That's not the message they send. Not for everyone. You don't know how future generations will interpret those statues. Control freaks. You don't mind if in 20 years or so your monument replacements get removed right?

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